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i)ME  GAINS  OF  THE  WAR 

1: 

Ian  ADDRESS  to  <Ae  ROYAL  COLONIAL  INSTITUTE 
I  Delivered  Fehntary  Thirteen,  Nineteen  Hundred  &  Eighteen 

I      i?^  WALTER  RALEIGH 


ff   YORK:   GEORGE   H.  DORAN   COMPANY 


SOME  GAINS  OF 
THE  WAR 

AN  ADDRESS 

TO  THE  ROYAL  COLONIAL  INSTITUTE 
Delivered  February  13,  1918 


BY 

WALTER  RALEIGH 


*       ••••■»•  »» 


NEW  YORK 
GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 

Price  Ten  Cents 


COPYRIGHT,   1918, 
BY  GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


«  *         c 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


•'.J 


SOME  GAINS  OF  THE  WAR 

Our  losses  in  this  War  continue  to  be  enormous, 
and  we  are  not  yet  near  to  the  end.  So  it  may  seem 
absurd  to  speak  of  our  gains,  of  gains  that  we  have 
already  achieved.  But  if  you  will  look  at  the  thing  in 
a  large  light,  I  think  you  will  see  that  it  is  not  absurd. 

I  do  not  speak  of  gains  of  territory,  and  prisoners, 
and  booty.  It  is  true  that  we  have  taken  from  the 
Germans  about  a  million  square  miles  of  land  in 
Africa,  where  land  is  cheap.  We  have  taken  more 
prisoners  from  them  than  they  have  taken  from  us, 
and  we  have  whole  parks  of  German  artillery  to  set 
over  against  the  battered  and  broken  remnants  of 
British  field-guns  which  were  exhibited  in  Berlin — 
a  monument  to  the  immortal  valour  of  the  little  old 
Army.  I  am  speaking  rather  of  gains  which  cannot 
be  counted  as  guns  are  counted,  or  measured  as  land 
is  measured,  but  which  are  none  the  less  real  and  im- 
portant. 

The  Germans  have  achieved  certain  great  material 
gains  in  this  War,  and  they  are  fighting  now  to  hold 
them.  If  they  fail  to  hold  them,  the  Germany  of  the 
war-lords  is  ruined.  She  will  have  to  give  up  all  her 
bloated  ambitions,  to  purge  and  live  cleanly,  and  pain- 
fully to  reconstruct  her  prosperity  on  a  quieter  and 
sounder  basis.  She  will  not  do  this  until  she  is  forced 
to  it  by  defeat.     No  doubt  there  are  moderate  and 

1 

380049 


2  SOME  r>AINS  OP  THE  WAR 

Rensibl'3  men  in  Ge/many,  as  in  other  countries;  but 
in  Germany  they  are  without  influence,  and  can  do 
nothing.  War  is  the  national  industry  of  Prussia; 
Prussia  has  knit  together  the  several  states  of  the 
larger  Germany  by  means  of  war,  and  has  promised 
them  prosperity  and  power  in  the  future,  to  be 
achieved  by  war.  You  know  the  Prussian  doctrine  of 
war.  Every  one  now  knows  it.  According  to  that 
doctrine  it  is  a  foolish  thing  for  a  nation  to  wait  till 
it  is  attacked.  It  should  carefully  calculate  its  own 
strength  and  the  strength  of  its  neighbours,  and,  when 
it  is  ready,  it  should  attack  them,  on  any  pretext,  sud- 
denly, without  warning,  and  should  take  from  them 
money  and  land.  When  it  has  gained  territory  in  this 
fashion,  it  should  subject  the  population  of  the  con- 
quered territory  to  the  strictest  laws  of  military  serv- 
ice, and  so  supply  itself  with  an  instrument  for  new 
and  bolder  aggression.  This  is  not  only  the  German 
doctrine ;  it  is  the  German  practice.  In  this  way  and 
no  other  modern  Germany  has  been  built  up.  It  is  a 
huge  new  State,  founded  on  force,  cemented  by  fear, 
and  financed  on  speculative  gains  to  be  derived  from 
the  great  gamble  of  war.  You  may  have  noticed  that 
the  German  people  have  not  been  called  on,  as  yet, 
to  pay  any  considerable  sum  in  taxation  towards  the 
expenses  of  this  war.  Those  expenses  (that,  at  least, 
was  the  original  idea)  were  to  be  borne  wholly  by  the 
conquered  enemy.  There  are  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  Germans  to-day  who  firmly  believe  that  their  war- 
lords will  return  in  triumph  from  the  stricken  field, 
bringing  with  them  the  spoils  of  war,  and  scattering 
a  largess  of  peace  and  plenty. 

To  us  it  seems  a  marvel  that  any  people  should  ac- 


SOME  GAINS  OF  THE  WAR  3 

cept  such  a  doctrine,  and  should  willingly  give  their 
lives  and  their  fortunes  to  the  work  of  carrying  it  out 
in  practice;  but  it  is  not  so  marvellous  as  it  seems^ 
The  German  peoples  are  brave  and  obedient,  and  so 
make  good  soldiers ;  they  are  easily  lured  by  the  hope 
of  profit ;  they  are  naturally  attracted  by  the  spectacu- 
lar and  sentimental  side  of  war ;  above  all,  they  are  so 
curiously  stupid  that  many  of  them  do  actually  be- 
lieve that  they  are  a  divinely  chosen  race,  superior  to 
the  other  races  of  the  world.  They  are  very  carefully 
educated,  and  their  education,  which  is  ordered  by 
the  State,  is  part  of  the  military  machine.  Their 
thinking  is  done  for  them  by  officials.  It  would  re- 
quire an  extraordinary  degree  of  courage  and  inde- 
pendence for  a  German  youth  to  cut  himself  loose  and 
begin  thinking  and  judging  for  himself.  It  must  al- 
ways be  remembered,  moreover,  that  their  recent  his- 
tory seems  to  justify  their  creed.  I  will  not  go  back 
to  Frederick  the  Great,  though  the  history  of  his 
wars  is  the  Prussian  handbook,  whic"h  teaches  all  the 
characteristic  Prussian  methods  of  treachery  and  de- 
ceit. But  consider  only  the  last  two  German  wars. 
How,  in  the  face  of  these,  can  it  be  proved  to  any 
German  that  war  is  not  the  most  profitable  of  ad- 
ventures? In  1866  Prussia  had  war  with  Austria. 
The  war  lasted  forty  days,  and  Prussia  had  from  five 
to  six  thousand  soldiers  killed  in  action.  As  a  con- 
sequence of  the  war  Prussia  gained  much  territory, 
and  established  her  control  over  the  states  of  greater 
Germany.  In  1870  she  had  war  with  France.  Her 
total  casualties  in  that  war  were  approximately  a 
hundred  thousand,  just  about  the  same  as  our  casu- 
alties in  Gallipoli.    From  the  war  she  gained,  besides 


4  SOME  GAINS  OF  THE  WAR 

a  great  increase  of  strength  at  home,  the  rich  prov- 
inces of  Alsace  and  Lorraine,  with  all  their  mineral 
wealth,  and  an  indemnity  of  two  hundred  million 
pounds,  that  is  to  say,  four  times  the  actual  cost  of 
the  war  in  money.  How  then  can  it  be  maintained 
that  war  is  not  good  business?  If  you  say  so  to  any 
Prussian,  he  thinks  you  are  talking  like  a  child. 

Not  only  were  these  two  wars  rich  in  profit  for  the 
Germans,  but  they  did  not  lose  them  much  esteem. 
There  was  sympathy  in  this  country  for  the  union  of 
the  German  peoples,  just  as  there  was  sympathy,  a  few 
years  earlier,  for  the  union  of  the  various  states  of 
Italy.  There  was  not  a  little  admiration  for  German 
efficiency  and  strength.  So  that  Bismarck,  who  was 
an  expert  in  all  the  uses  of  bullying,  blackmail,  and 
fraud,  was  accepted  as  a  great  European  statesman. 
I  have  always  believed,  and  I  still  believe,  that  Ger- 
many will  have  to  pay  a  heavy  price  for  Bismarck — 
all  the  heavier  because  the  payment  has  been  so  long 
deferred. 

The  present  War,  then,  is  in  the  direct  line  of  suc- 
cession to  these  former  wars ;  it  was  planned  by  Ger- 
many, elaborately  and  deliberately  planned,  on  a  cal- 
culation of  the  profits  to  be  derived  from  operations 
on  a  large  scale. 

Well,  as  I  said,  we,  as  a  people,  do  not  believe  in 
gambling  in  human  misery  to  attain  uncertain  specu- 
lative gains.  We  hold  that  war  can  be  justified  only 
by  a  good  cause,  not  by  a  lucky  event.  The  German 
doctrine  seems  to  us  impious  and  wicked.  Though  we 
have  defined  our  war  aims  in  detail,  and  the  Germans 
have  not  dared  publicly  to  define  theirs,  our  real  and 
sufficient  war  aim  is  to  break  the  monstrous  and  in- 


SOME  GAINS  OF  THE  WAR  5 

human  doctrine  and  practice  of  the  enemy — to  make 

their  calculations  miscarry.     And  observe,  if  their 

calculations  miscarry,  they  have  fought  and  suffered 

for  nothing.     They  entered  into  this  War  for  profit, 

and  in  the  conduct  of  the  War,  though  they  have 

made  many  mistakes,  they  have  made  none  of  those 

generous  and  magnanimous  mistakes  which  redeem 

and  beautify  a  losing  cause. 

The  essence  of  our  cause,  and  its  greatest  strength,  is 

that  we  are  not  fighting  for  profit.    We  are  fighting  for 

no  privilege  except  the  privilege  of  possessing  our 

souls,  of  being  ourselves — a  privilege  which  we  claim 

also  for  other  weaker  nations.  The  inestimable  strength 

of  that  position  is  that  if  the  odds  are  against  us  it  does 

not  matter.    If  you  see  a  ruffian  torturing  a  child,  and 

interfere  to  prevent  him,  do  you  feel  that  your  attempt 

was  a  wrong  one  because  he  knocks  you  down  ?    And 

if  you  succeed,  what  material  profit  is  there  in  saving  a 

child  from  torture  ?    We  have  sometimes  fought  in  the 

past  for  doubtful  causes  and  for  wrong  causes,  but  this 

time  there  is  no  mistake.    Our  cause  is  better  than  we 

deserve;  we  embraced  it  by  an  act  of  faith,  and  it  is 

only  by  continuing  in  that  faith  that  we  shall  see  it 

through.     The  little  old  Army,  when  they  went  to 

France  in  August  1914,  did  not  ask  what  profits  were 

likely  to  come  their  way.    They  knew  that  there  were 

none,  but  they  were  willing  to  sacrifice  themselves  to 

save  decency  and  humanity  from  being  trampled  in  the 

mud.     This  was  the  Army  that  the  Germans  called  a 

mercenary  Army,  and  its  epitaph  has  been  written  by 

a  good  poet : 

These,  in  the  day  when  heaven  was  falling, 
The  hour  when  earth's  foundations  fled, 


€  SOME  GAINS  OF  THE  WAR 

Followed  their  mercenary  calling, 
And  took  their  wages,  and  are  dead. 
Their  shoulders  held  the  heavens  suspended, 
They  stood,  and  earth's  foundations  stay, 
What  God  abandoned  these  defended, 
And  saved  the  sum  of  things  for  pay. 

We  must  follow  their  example,  for  we  shall  never 
get  a  better.  AVe  must  not  make  too  much  of  calcula- 
tion, especially  when  it  deals  with  incalculable  things. 
Nervous  public  critics,  like  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells,  are  always 
calling  out  for  more  cleverness  in  our  methods,  for  new 
and  effective  tricks,  so  that  we  may  win  the  War.  I 
would  never  disparage  cleverness ;  the  more  you  can 
get  of  it,  the  better ;  but  it  is  useless  unless  it  is  in  the 
service  of  something  stronger  and  greater  than  itself, 
and  that  is  character.  Cleverness  can  grasp ;  it  is  only 
character  that  can  hold.  The  Duke  of  Wellington  was 
not  a  clever  man ;  he  was  a  man  of  simple  and  honour- 
able mind,  with  an  infinite  capacity  for  patience,  per- 
sistence, and  endurance,  so  that  neither  unexpected  re- 
verses a'^road  nor  a  flood  of  idle  criticism  at  home  could 
shake  him  or  change  him.  So  he  bore  a  chief  part  in  lay- 
ing low  the  last  great  tyranny  that  desolated  Europe. 

None  of  our  great  wars  was  won  by  cleverness ;  they 
were  all  won  by  resolution  and  perseverance.  In  all 
of  them  we  were  near  to  despair  and  did  not  despair. 
In  all  of  them  we  won  through  to  victory  in  the  end. 

But  in  none  of  them  did  victory  come  in  the  expected 
shape.  The  worst  of  making  elaborate  plans  of  victory, 
and  programmes  of  all  that  is  to  follow  victory,  is  that 
the  mixed  event  is  sure  to  defeat  those  plans.  Not 
every  war  finds  its  decision  in  a  single  great  battle. 
Think  of  our  war  with  Spain  in  the  sixteenth  century. 


SOME  GAINS  OF  THE  WAR  7 

Spain  was  then  the  greatest  of  European  Powers.    She 
had  larger  armies  than  we  could  raise ;  she  had  more 
than  our  wealth,  and  more  than  our  shipping.     The 
newly  discovered  continent  of  America  was  an  appan- 
age of  Spain,  and  her  great  galleons  were  wafted  lazily 
to  and  fro,  bringing  her  all  the  treasures  of  the  west- 
ern hemisphere.    We  defeated  her  by  standing  out  and 
holding  on.     We  fought  her  in  the  Low  Countries, 
which  she  enslaved  and  oppressed.     We  refused  to 
recognize  her  exclusive  rights  in  America,  and  our 
merchant  seamen  kept  the  sea  undaunted,  as  they  have 
kept  it  for  the  last  three  years.     When  at  last  we 
became  an  intolerable  vexation  to  Spain,  she  collected 
a  great  Armada,  or  war-fleet,  to  invade  and  destroy  us ; 
and  it  was  shattered,  by  the  winds  of  heaven  and  the 
sailors  of  England,  in  1588.  The  defeat  of  the  Armada 
was  the  turning-point  of  the  war,  but  it  was  not  the 
end.    It  lifted  a  great  shadow  of  fear  from  the  hearts 
of  the  people,  as  a  great  shadow  of  fear  has  already 
been  lifted  from  their  hearts  in  the  present  War,  but 
during  the  years  that  followed  we  suffered  many  and 
serious  reverses  at  the  hand  of  Spain,  before  peace  and 
security  were  reached.    So  late  as  1601,  thirteen  years 
after  the  defeat  of  the  Armada,  the  King  of  Denmark 
offered  to  mediate  between  England  and  Spain,  so  that 
the  long  and  disastrous  war  might  be  ended.     Queen 
Elizabeth  was  then  old  and  frail,  but  this  was  what  she 
said — and  if  you  want  to  understand  why  she  was 
almost  adored  by  her  people,  listen  to  her  words:  *I 
would  have  the  King  of  Denmark,  and  all  Princes 
Christian  and  Heathen  to  know,  that  England  hath  no 
need  to  crave  peace;  nor  myself  endured  one  hour's 
fear  since  I  attained  the  crown  thereof,  being  guarded 


8  SOME  GAINS  OF  THE  WAR 

with  so  valiant  and  faithful  subjects.'  In  the  end  the 
power  and  menace  of  Spain  faded  away,  and  when 
peace  was  made,  in  1604:,  this  nation  never  again,  from 
that  day  to  this,  feared  the  worst  that  Spain  could  do. 

What  were  our  gains  from  the  war  with  Spain? 
Freedom  to  live  our  lives  in  our  own  way,  unthreat- 
ened ;  freedom  to  colonize  America.  The  gains  of  a 
great  war  are  never  visible  immediately ;  they  are  de- 
ferred, and  extended  over  many  years.  What  did  we 
gain  by  our  war  with  Napoleon,  which  ended  in  the  vic- 
tory of  Waterloo  ?  For  long  years  after  Waterloo  this 
country  was  full  of  riots  and  discontents ;  there  were 
rick-burnings,  agitations,  popular  risings,  and  some- 
thing very  near  to  famine  in  the  land.  But  all  these 
things,  from  a  distance,  are  now  seen  to  have  been  the 
broken  water  that  follows  the  passage  of  a  great  storm. 
The  real  gains  of  Waterloo,  and  still  more  of  Trafalgar, 
are  evident  in  the  enormous  commercial  and  industrial 
development  of  England  during  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, and  in  the  peaceful  foundation  of  the  great  do- 
minions of  Canada,  Australia,  and  South  Africa,  which 
was  made  possible  only  by  our  unchallenged  use  of  the 
seas.  The  men  who  won  those  two  great  battles  did 
not  live  to  gather  the  fruits  of  their  victory ;  but  their 
children  did.  If  we  defeat  Germany  as  completely  as 
we  hope,  we  shall  not  be  able  to  point  at  once  to  our 
gains.  But  it  is  not  a  rash  forecast  to  say  that  our  chil- 
dren and  children 's  children  will  live  in  greater  secur- 
ity and  freedom  than  we  have  ever  tasted. 

A  man  must  have  a  good  and  wide  imagination  if  he 
is  to  be  willing  to  face  wounds  and  death  for  the  sake 
of  his  unborn  descendants  and  kinsfolk.  We  cannot 
count  on  the  popular  imagination  being  equal  to  the 


SOME  GAINS  OF  THE  WAR  9 

task.  Fortunately,  there  is  a  substitute  for  imagina- 
tion which  does  the  work  as  well  or  better,  and  that 
is  character.  Our  people  are  sound  in  instinct ;  they 
understand  a  fight.  They  know  that  a  wrestler  who 
considers,  while  he  is  in  the  grip  of  his  adversary, 
whether  he  would  not  do  well  to  give  over,  and  so  put 
an  end  to  the  weariness  and  the  strain,  is  no  sort  of 
a  wrestler.  They  have  never  failed  under  a  strain  of 
this  kind,  and  they  will  not  fail  now.  The  people  who 
do  the  half-hearted  and  timid  talking  are  either  young 
egotists,  who  are  angry  at  being  deprived  of  their  per- 
sonal ease  and  independence ;  or  elderly  pensive  gentle- 
men, in  public  offices  and  clubs,  who  are  no  longer 
fit  for  action,  and,  being  denied  action,  fall  into  mel- 
ancholy; or  feverish  journalists,  who  live  on  the  pro- 
ceeds of  excitement,  who  feel  the  pulse  and  take  the 
temperature  of  the  War  every  morning,  and  then  rush 
into  the  street  to  announce  their  fluttering  hopes  and 
fears;  or  cosmopolitan  philosophers,  to  whom  the 
change  from  London  to  Berlin  means  nothing  but  a 
change  in  diet  and  a  pleasant  addition  to  their  oppor- 
tunities of  hearing  good  music ;  or  aliens  in  heart,  to 
whom  the  historic  fame  of  England,  'dear  for  her  repu- 
tation through  the  world, '  is  less  than  nothing ;  or  prac- 
tical jokers,  who  are  calm  and  confident  enough  them- 
selves, but  delight  in  startling  and  depressing  others. 
These  are  not  the  people  of  England ;  they  are  the  para- 
sites of  the  people  of  England.  The  people  of  Eng- 
land understand  a  fight. 

That  brings  me  to  the  first  great  gain  of  the  War. 
We  have  found  ourselves.  Which  of  us,  in  the  early 
months  of  1914,  would  have  dared  to  predict  the 
splendours  of  the  youth  of  this  Empire — splendours 


10  SOME  GAINS  OF  THE  WAR 

which  are  now  a  part  of  our  history  ?  We  are  adepts 
at  self-criticism  and  self-depreciation.  We  hate  the 
lan^age  of  emotion.  Some  of  us,  if  we  were  taken  to 
heaven  and  asked  what  we  thought  of  it,  would  say 
that  it  is  decent,  or  not  so  bad.  I  suppose  we  are 
jealous  to  keep  our  standard  high,  and  to  have  some- 
thing to  say  if  a  better  place  should  be  found.  But  in 
spite  of  all  this,  we  do  now  know,  and  it  is  worth 
knowing,  that  we  are  not  weaker  than  our  fathers. 
We  know  that  the  people  who  inhabit  these  islands 
and  this  commonwealth  of  nations  cannot  be  pushed  on 
one  side,  or  driven  under,  or  denied  a  great  share  in 
the  future  ordering  of  the  world.  We  know  this,  and 
our  knowledge  of  it  is  the  debt  that  we  owe  to  our  dead. 
It  is  not  vanity  to  admit  that  we  know  it ;  on  the 
contrary,  it  would  be  vanity  to  pretend  that  we  do  not 
know  it.  It  is  visible  to  other  eyes  than  ours.  Some 
time  ago  I  heard  an  address  given  by  a  friend  of  mine, 
an  Indian  Mohammedan  of  warrior  descent,  to  Univer- 
sity students  of  his  own  faith.  He  was  urging  on  them 
the  futility  of  dreams  and  the  necessity  of  self -disci- 
pline and  self-devotion.  'Why  do  the  people  of  this 
country \  he  said,  'count  for  so  much  all  the  world 
over  ?  It  is  not  because  of  their  dreams ;  it  is  because 
thousands  of  them  are  lying  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea. ' 
Further,  we  have  not  only  found  ourselves ;  we  have 
found  one  another.  A  new  kindliness  has  grown  up, 
during  the  War,  between  people  divided  by  the  bar- 
riers of  class,  or  wealth,  or  circumstance.  A  statesman 
of  the  seventeenth  century  remarks  that  It  is  a  Misfor- 
tune for  a  Man  not  to  have  a  Friend  in  the  World,  but 
for  that  reason  he  shall  have  no  Enemy.  I  might  invert 
his  maxim  and  say,  It  is  a  Misfortune  for  a  Man  to  have 


SOME  GAINS  OF  THE  WAR  11 

many  Enemies,  but  for  that  reason  he  shall  know  who 
are  his  Friends.  No  Radical  member  of  Parliament 
will  again,  while  any  of  us  live,  cast  contempt  on  'the 
carpet  Captains  of  Mayfair'.  No  idle  Tory  talker  will 
ngain  dare  to  say  that  the  working  men  of  England 
care  nothing  for  their  country.  Even  the  manners  of 
railway  travel  have  improved.  I  was  travelling  in  a 
third-class  compartment  of  a  crowded  train  the  other 
day ;  we  were  twenty  in  the  compartment,  but  it  seemed 
a  pity  to  leave  any  one  behind,  and  we  made  room  for 
number  twenty-one.  Nothing  but  a  very  kindly  human 
feeling  could  have  packed  us  tight  enough  for  this.  Yet 
now  is  the  time  that  has  been  chosen  by  some  of  these 
pensive  gentlemen  that  I  spoke  of,  and  by  some  of  these 
excitable  journalists,  to  threaten  us  with  class-war,  and 
to  try  to  make  our  flesh  creep  by  conjuring  up  the  hor- 
rors of  revolution.  I  advise  them  to  take  their  opinions 
to  the  third-class  compartment  and  discuss  them  there. 
It  is  a  good  tribunal,  for,  sooner  or  later,  you  will  find 
every  one  there — even  officers,  when  they  are  travelling 
in  mufti  at  their  own  expense.  I  have  visited  this 
tribunal  very  often,  and  I  have  always  come  away  from 
it  with  the  same  impression,  that  this  people  means 
to  win  the  War.  But  I  do  not  travel  much  in  the 
North  of  England,  so  I  asked  a  friend  of  mine,  whose 
dealings  are  with  the  industrial  North,  what  the  work- 
people of  Lancashire  and  Yorkshire  think  of  the  War. 
He  said,  *  Their  view  is  very  simple :  they  mean  to 
win  it;  and  they  mean  to  make  as  much  money  out 
of  it  as  ever  they  can. '  Certainly,  that  is  very  simple ; 
but  before  you  judge  them,  put  yourselves  in  their 
place.  There  are  great  outcries  against  profiteers,  for 
making  exorbitant  profits  out  of  the  War,  and  against 


12  SOME  GAINS  OF  THE  WAR 

munition  workers,  for  delaying  work  in  order  to  get 
higher  wages.  I  do  not  defend  either  of  them ;  they 
are  unimaginative  and  selfish,  and  I  do  not  care  how 
severely  they  are  dealt  with;  but  I  do  say  that  the 
majority  of  them  are  not  wicked  in  intention.  A  good 
many  of  the  more  innocent  profiteers  are  men  whose  sin 
is  that  they  take  an  offer  of  two  shillings  rather  than 
an  offer  of  eighteenpence  for  what  cost  them  one  and  a 
penny.  Some  of  us,  in  our  weaker  moments,  might  be 
betrayed  into  doing  the  same.  As  for  the  munition 
workers,  I  remember  what  Goldsmith,  who  had  known 
the  bitterest  poverty,  wrote  to  his  brother.  *  Avarice ', 
he  said,  'in  the  lower  orders  of  mankind  is  true  ambi- 
tion ;  avarice  is  the  only  ladder  the  poor  can  use  to  pre- 
ferment. Preach  then,  my  dear  Sir,  to  your  son,  not  the 
excellence  of  human  nature  nor  the  disrespect  of  riches, 
but  endeavour  to  teach  him  thrift  and  economy.  Let  his 
poor  wandering  uncle 's  example  be  placed  in  his  eyes. 
I  had  learned  from  books  to  love  virtue  before  I  was 
taught  from  experience  the  necessity  of  being  selfish. ' 
The  profiteers  and  the  munition  workers  are  en- 
deavouring, incidentally,  to  better  their  own  position. 
But  make  no  mistake ;  the  bulk  of  these  people  would 
rather  die  than  allow  one  spire  of  English  grass  to  be 
trodden  under  the  foot  of  a  foreign  trespasser.  Their 
chief  sin  is  that  they  do  not  fear.  They  think  that  there 
is  plenty  of  time  to  do  a  little  business  for  themselves 
on  the  way  to  defeat  the  enemy.  I  cannot  help  re- 
membering the  mutiny  at  the  Nore,  which  broke  out 
in  our  fleet  during  the  Napoleonic  wars.  The  mutineers 
struck  for  more  pay  and  better  treatment,  but  they 
agreed  together  that  if  the  French  fleet  should  put  in 
an  appearance  during  the  mutiny,  all  their  claims 


SOME  GAINS  OF  THE  WAR  13 

should  be  postponed  for  a  time,  and  the  French  fleet 
should  have  their  first  attention. 

Employers  and  employed  do,  no  doubt,  find  in  some 
trades  to-day  that  their  relations  are  strained  and  irk- 
some. They  would  do  well  to  take  a  lesson  from  the 
Army,  where,  with  very  few  exceptions,  there  is  har- 
mony and  understanding  between  those  who  take  or- 
ders and  those  who  give  them.  It  is  only  in  the  Army 
that  you  can  see  realized  the  ideal  of  ancient  Rome. 

Then  none  was  for  a  party. 

Then  all  were  for  the  State; 
Then  the  great  man  helped  the  poor, 

And  the  poor  man  loved  the  great. 

Why  is  the  Army  so  far  superior  to  most  commercial 
and  industrial  businesses?  The  secret  does  not  lie  in 
State  employment.  There  is  plenty  of  discontent  and 
unrest  among  the  State-employed  railway  men  and 
munition  workers.  It  lies  rather  in  the  habit  of  mu- 
tual help  and  mutual  trust.  If  any  civilian  employer 
of  labour  wants  to  have  willing  workpeople,  let  him 
take  a  hint  from  the  Army.  Let  him  live  with  his 
workpeople,  and  share  all  their  dangers  and  discom- 
forts. Let  him  take  thought  for  their  welfare  before 
his  own,  and  teach  self-sacrifice  by  example.  Let  him 
put  the  good  of  the  nation  before  all  private  interests ; 
and  those  whom  he  commands  will  do  for  him  anything 
that  he  asks. 

I  cannot  believe  that  the  benefits  which  have  come  to 
us  from  the  Army  will  pass  away  with  the  passing  of 
the  W^ar.  Those  who  have  been  comrades  in  danger 
will  surely  take  with  them  something  of  the  old  spirit 
into  civil  life.    And  those  who  have  kept  clear  of  the 


14  SOME  GAINS  OP  THE  WAR 

Army  in  order  to  carry  on  their  own  trades  and  busi- 
nesses will  surely  realize  that  they  have  missed  the 
^eat  opportunity  of  their  lives. 

In  a  wider  sense  the  War  has  brought  us  to  an  un- 
derstanding of  one  another.  This  great  Common- 
wealth of  independent  nations  which  is  called  the 
British  Empire  is  scattered  over  the  surface  of  the 
habitable  globe.  It  embraces  people  who  live  ten 
thousand  miles  apart,  and  whose  ways  of  life  are  so 
different  that  they  might  seem  to  have  nothing  in 
common.  But  the  War  has  brought  them  together, 
and  has  done  more  than  half  a  century  of  peace  could 
do  to  promote  a  common  understanding.  Hundreds 
of  thousands  of  men  of  our  blood  who,  before  the  War, 
had  never  seen  this  little  island,  have  now  made 
acquaintance  with  it.  Hundreds  of  thousands  of  the 
inhabitants  of  this  island  to  whom  the  Dominions  were 
strange,  far  places,  if,  after  the  War,  they  should  be 
called  on  to  settle  there,  will  not  feel  that  they  are 
leaving  home.  I  can  only  hope  that  the  Canadians 
and  Anzacs  think  as  well  of  us  as  we  do  of  them.  We 
do  not  like  to  praise  our  friends  in  their  hearing,  so  I 
will  say  no  more  than  this :  I  am  told  that  a  new  kind 
of  peerage,  very  haughty  and  very  self-important,  has 
arisen  in  South  London.  Its  members  are  those  house- 
holders who  have  been  privileged  to  have  Anzac 
soldiers  billeted  on  them.  It  is  private  ties  of  this 
kind,  invisible  to  the  constitutional  lawyer  and  the 
political  historian,  which  make  the  fine  meshes  of  the 
web  of  Empire. 

Because  he  knew  that  the  strength  of  the  whole 
texture  depends  on  the  strength  of  the  fine  meshes. 
Earl  Grey,  who  died  last  year,  will  always  be  remem- 


SOME  GAINS  OF  THE  WAR  15 

bered  in  our  history.  Not  many  men  have  his  oppor- 
tunity to  make  acquaintance  with  the  domain  that  is 
their  birthright,  for  he  had  administered  a  province  of 
South  Africa,  and  had  been  Governor-General  of  Can- 
ada. He  rediscovered  the  glory  of  the  Empire,  as  poets 
rediscover  the  glory  of  common  speech.  *He  had 
breathed  its  air, '  a  friend  of  his  says,  *  fished  its  rivers, 
walked  in  its  valleys,  stood  on  its  mountains,  met  its 
people  face  to  face.  He  had  seen  it  in  all  the  zones  of 
the  world.  He  knew  what  it  meant  to  mankind.  Un- 
der the  British  flag,  wherever  he  journeyed,  he  found 
men  of  English  speech  living  in  an  atmosphere  of  lib- 
erty and  carrying  on  the  dear  domestic  traditions  of 
the  British  Isles.  He  saw  justice  firmly  planted  there, 
industry  and  invention  hard  at  work  unfettered  by 
tyrants  of  any  kind,  domestic  life  prospering  in  natu- 
ral conditions,  and  our  old  English  kindness  and  cheer- 
fulness and  broad-minded  tolerance  keeping  things  to- 
gether. But  he  also  saw  room  under  that  same  flag, 
ample  room,  for  millions  and  millions  more  of  the 
human  race.  The  Empire  wasn't  a  word  to  him.  It 
was  a  vast,  an  almost  boundless,  home  for  honest  men. ' 

The  War  did  not  dishearten  him.  When  he  died,  in 
August,  1917,  he  said,  'Here  I  lie  on  my  death-bed, 
looking  clear  into  the  Promised  Land.  I  'm  not  allowed 
to  enter  it,  but  there  it  is  before  my  eyes.  After  the 
War  the  people  of  this  country  will  enter  it,  and  those 
who  laughed  at  me  for  a  dreamer  will  see  that  I  wasn't 
so  wrong  after  all.  But  there's  still  work  to  do  for 
those  who  didn  't  laugh,  hard  work,  and  with  much  op- 
position in  the  way ;  all  the  same,  it  is  work  right  up 
against  the  goal.    My  dreams  have  come  true. ' 

One  of  the  clear  gains  of  the  War  is  to  be  found  in 


16  SOME  GAINS  OF  THE  WAR 

the  increased  activity  and  alertness  of  our  own  people. 
The  motto  of  to-day  is,  '  Let  those  now  work  who  never 
worked  before,  And  those  who  always  worked  now 
work  the  more.'  Before  the  War  we  had  a  great  na- 
tional reputation  for  idleness — in  this  island,  at  least. 
I  remember  a  friendly  critic  from  Canada  who,  some 
five  or  six  years  ago,  expressed  to  me,  with  much  dis- 
quiet, his  opinion  that  there  was  something  very  far 
wrong  with  the  old  country;  that  we  had  gone  soft. 
As  for  our  German  critics,  they  expressed  the  same 
view  in  gross  and  unmistakable  fashion.  Wit  is  not 
a  native  product  in  Germany,  it  all  has  to  be  imported, 
so  they  could  not  satirize  us ;  but  their  caricatures  of 
the  typical  Englishman  showed  us  what  they  thought. 
He  was  a  young  weakling  with  a  foolish  face,  and  was 
dressed  in  cricketing  flannels.  It  would  have  been 
worth  their  while  to  notice  what  they  did  not  notice, 
that  his  muscles  and  nerves  are  not  soft.  They  learned 
that  later,  when  the  bank-clerks  of  Manchester  broke 
the  Prussian  Guard  into  fragments  at  Contalmaison. 
This  must  have  been  a  sad  surprise,  for  the  Germans 
had  always  taught,  in  their  delightful  authoritative 
fashion,  that  the  chief  industries  of  the  young  English- 
man are  lawn-tennis  and  afternoon  tea.  They  are  a 
fussy  people,  and  they  find  it  difficult  to  understand  the 
calm  of  the  man  who,  having  nothing  to  do,  does  it. 
Perhaps  they  were  right,  and  we  were  too  idle.  The  dis- 
ease was  never  so  serious  as  they  thought  it,  and  now, 
thanks  to  them,  we  are  in  a  fair  way  to  recovery.  The 
idle  classes  have  turned  their  hand  to  the  lathe  and  the 
plough.  Women  are  doing  a  hundred  things  that  they 
never  did  before,  and  are  doing  them  well.  The  elas- 
ticity and  resourcefulness  that  the  War  has  developed 


SOME  GAINS  OF  THE  WAR  17 

will  not  be  lost  or  destroyed  by  the  coming  of  peace. 
Least  of  all  will  those  qualities  be  lost  if  we  should 
prove  unable,  in  this  War,  to  impose  our  own  terms  on 
Germany.  Then  the  peace  that  follows  will  be  a  long 
struggle,  and  in  that  struggle  we  shall  prevail.  In  the 
last  long  peace  we  were  not  suspicious ;  we  felt  friendly 
enough  to  the  Germans,  and  we  gave  them  every  ad- 
vantage. They  despised  us  for  our  friendliness  and 
used  the  peace  to  prepare  our  downfall.  That  will 
never  happen  again.  If  we  cannot  tame  the  cunning 
animal  that  has  assaulted  humanity,  at  least  we  can 
and  will  tether  him.  Laws  will  not  be  necessary ;  there 
are  millions  of  others  besides  the  seamen  of  England 
who  will  have  no  dealings  with  an  unsubdued  and  un- 
repentant Germany.  What  the  Germans  are  not  taught 
by  the  War  they  will  have  to  learn  in  the  more  tedious 
and  no  less  costly  school  of  peace. 

In  any  case,  whether  we  win  through  to  real  peace 
and  real  security,  or  whether  we  are  thrown  back  on  an 
armed  peace  and  the  duty  of  unbroken  vigilance,  we 
shall  be  dependent  for  our  future  on  the  children 
who  are  now  learning  in  the  schools  or  playing  in 
the  streets.  It  is  a  good  dependence.  The  children 
of  to-day  are  better  than  the  children  whom  I  knew 
when  I  was  a  child.  I  think  they  have  more  intelli- 
gence and  sympathy ;  they  certainly  have  more  public 
spirit.  We  cannot  do  too  much  for  them.  The  most 
that  we  can  do  is  nothing  to  what  they  are  going  to  do 
for  us,  for  their  own  nation  and  people.  I  am  not  con- 
cerned to  discuss  the  education  problem.  Formal  edu- 
cation, carried  on  chiefly  by  means  of  books,  is  a  very 
small  part  of  the  making  of  a  man  or  a  woman.  But  I 
am  interested  to  know  what  the  children  are  thinking. 


18  SOME  GAINS  OF  THE  WAR 

You  cannot  fathom  a  child's  thoughts,  but  we  know 
who  are  their  best  teachers,  and  what  lessons  have  been 
stamped  indelibly  on  their  minds.  Their  teachers, 
whom  they  never  saw,  and  whose  lessons  they  will 
never  forget,  lie  in  graves  in  Flanders  and  France  and 
Gallipoli  and  Syria  and  Mesopotamia,  or  unburied  at 
the  bottom  of  the  sea.  The  runner  falls,  but  the  torch 
is  carried  forward.  This  is  what  Julian  Grenfell,  who 
gave  his  mind  and  his  life  to  the  War,  has  said  in  his 
splendid  poem  called  Into  Battle : 

And  life  is  colour  and  warmth  and  light, 
And  a  striving  evermore  for  these; 
And  he  is  dead  who  will  not  fight. 
And  who  dies  fighting  hath  increase. 

Those  who  died  fighting  will  have  such  increase  that  a 
whole  new  generation,  better  even  than  the  old,  will  be 
ready,  no  long  time  hence,  to  uphold  and  extend  and 
decorate  the  Commonwealth  of  nations  which  their 
fathers  and  brothers  saved  from  ruin. 

One  thing  I  have  never  heard  discussed,  but  it  is  the 
clearest  gain  of  all,  and  already  it  may  be  called  a  cer- 
tain gain.  After  the  War  the  English  language  will 
have  such  a  position  as  it  has  never  had  before.  It  will 
be  established  in  world-wide  security.  Even  before 
the  War,  it  may  be  truly  said,  our  language  was  in  no 
danger  from  the  competition  of  the  German  language. 
The  Germans  have  never  had  much  success  in  the  at- 
tempt to  get  their  language  adopted  by  other  peoples. 
Not  all  the  military  laws  of  Prussia  can  drive  out 
French  from  the  hearts  and  homes  of  the  people  of 
Alsace.  In  the  ports  of  the  near  and  far  East  you  will 
hear  English  spoken — pidgin  English,  as  it  is  called, 


SOME  GAINS  OF  THE  WAR  19 

that  is  to  say,  a  selection  of  English  words  suited  for 
the  business  of  daily  life.  But  you  may  roam  the  world 
over,  and  you  will  hear  no  pidgin  German,  Before  the 
War  many  Germans  learned  English,  while  very  few 
English-speaking  people  learned  German.  In  other 
matters  we  disagreed,  but  we  both  knew  which  way 
the  wind  was  blowing.  It  may  be  said,  and  said  truly, 
that  our  well-known  laziness  was  one  cause  of  our  fail- 
ing or  neglecting  to  learn  German.  But  it  was  not 
the  only  cause ;  and  we  are  not  lazy  in  tasks  which  we 
believe  to  be  worth  our  while.  Rather  we  had  an  in- 
stinctive belief  that  the  future  does  not  belong  to  the 
German  tongue.  That  belief  is  not  likely  to  be  im- 
paired by  the  War.  Armed  ruffians  can  do  some 
things,  but  one  thing  they  cannot  do ;  they  cannot  en- 
dear their  language  to  those  who  have  suffered  from 
their  violence.  The  Germans  poisoned  the  wells  in 
South-West  Africa ;  in  Europe  they  did  all  they  could 
to  poison  the  wells  of  mutual  trust  and  mutual  under- 
standing among  civilized  men.  Do  they  think  that  these 
things  will  make  a  good  advertisement  for  the  explosive 
guttural  sounds  and  the  huddled  deformed  syntax  of 
the  speech  in  which  they  express  their  arrogance  and 
their  hate?  Which  of  the  chief  European  languages 
will  come  first,  after  the  War,  with  the  little  nations  ? 
Will  Serbia  be  content  to  speak  German  ?  Will  Norway 
and  Denmark  feel  a  new  affection  for  the  speech  of  the 
men  who  have  degraded  the  old  humanity  of  the  seas? 
Neighbourhood,  kinship,  and  the  necessities  of  com- 
merce may  retain  for  the  German  language  a  certain 
measure  of  custom  in  Sweden  and  Switzerland,  and  in 
Holland.  But  for  the  most  part  Germans  will  have  to 
be  content  to  be  addressed  in  their  own  tongue  only  by 


20  SOME  GAINS  OF  THE  WAR 

those  who  fear  them,  or  by  those  who  hope  to  cheat 
them. 

This  gain,  which  I  make  bold  to  predict  for  the  Eng- 
lish language,  is  a  real  gain,  apart  from  all  patriotic 
bias.  The  English  language  is  incomparably  richer, 
more  fluid,  and  more  vital  than  the  German  language. 
Where  the  German  has  but  one  way  of  saying  a  thing, 
we  have  two  or  three,  each  with  its  distinctions  and  its 
subtleties  of  usage.  Our  capital  wealth  is  greater,  and 
so  are  our  powers  of  borrowing.  English  sprang  from 
the  old  Teutonic  stock,  and  we  can  still  coin  new  words, 
such  as  'food-hoard'  and  *  joy-ride',  in  the  German 
fashion.  But  long  centuries  ago  we  added  thousands 
of  Romance  words,  words  which  came  into  English 
through  the  French  or  Norman-French,  and  brought 
with  them  the  ideas  of  Latin  civilization  and  of  medi- 
aeval Christianity.  Later  on,  when  the  renewed  study 
of  Latin  and  Greek  quickened  the  intellectual  life  of 
Europe,  we  imported  thousands  of  Greek  and  Latin 
words  direct  from  the  ancient  world,  learned  words, 
many  of  them,  suitable  for  philosophers,  or  for  writers 
who  pride  themselves  on  shooting  a  little  above  the 
vulgar  apprehension.  Yet  many  of  these,  too,  have 
found  their  way  into  daily  speech,  so  that  we  can  say 
most  things  in  three  ways,  according  as  we  draw  on  one 
or  another  of  the  three  main  sources  of  our  speech. 
Thus,  you  can  Begin,  or  Commence,  or  Initiate  an 
undertaking,  with  Boldness,  or  Courage,  or  Resolution. 
If  you  are  a  Workman,  or  Labourer,  or  Operative,  you 
can  Ask,  or  Request,  or  Solicit  your  employer  to  Yield, 
or  Grant,  or  Concede,  an  increase  in  the  Earnings,  or 
Wages,  or  Remuneration  which  fall  to  the  lot  of  your 
Fellow,  or  Companion,  or  Associate.    Your  employer 


SOME  GAINS  OF  THE  WAR  21 

is  perhaps  Old,  or  Veteran,  or  Superannuated,  which 
may  Hinder,  or  Delay,  or  Retard  the  success  of  your 
application.  But  if  you  Foretell,  or  Prophesy,  or  Pre- 
dict that  the  War  will  have  an  End,  or  Close,  or  Termi- 
nation that  shall  not  only  be  Speedy,  or  Rapid,  or  Ac- 
celerated, but  also  Great,  or  Grand,  or  Magnificent,  you 
may  perhaps  Stir,  or  Move,  or  Actuate  him  to  have 
Ruth,  or  Pity,  or  Compassion  on  your  Mate,  or  Col- 
lea^e,  or  Collaborator. 

The  English  language,  then,  is  a  language  of  great 
wealth — much  greater  wealth  than  can  be  illustrated 
by  any  brief  example.  But  wealth  is  nothing  unless  you 
can  use  it.  The  real  strength  of  English  lies  in  the 
inspired  freedom  and  variety  of  its  syntax.  There  is  no 
grammar  of  the  English  speech  which  is  not  comic  in 
its  stiffness  and  inadequacy.  An  English  grammar 
does  not  explain  all  that  we  can  do  with  our  speech ;  it 
merely  explains  what  shackles  and  restraints  we  must 
put  upon  our  speech  if  w^e  would  bring  it  within  the 
comprehension  of  a  school-bred  grammarian.  But  the 
speech  itself  is  like  the  sea,  and  soon  breaks  down  the 
dykes  built  by  the  inland  engineer.  It  was  the  fashion, 
in  the  eighteenth  century,  to  speak  of  the  divine  Shake- 
speare. The  reach  and  catholicity  of  his  imagination 
was  what  earned  him  that  extravagant  praise ;  but  his 
snytax  has  no  less  title  to  be  called  divine.  It  is  not 
cast  or  wrought,  like  metal ;  it  leaps  like  fire,  and  moves 
like  air.  So  is  every  one  that  is  born  of  the  spirit.  Our 
speech  is  our  great  charter.  Far  better  than  in  the  long 
constitutional  process  whereby  we  subjected  our  kings 
to  law,  and  gave  dignity  and  strength  to  our  Commons, 
the  meaning  of  English  freedom  is  to  be  seen  in  the  il- 
limitable freedom  of  our  English  speech. 


22  SOME  GAINS  OF  THE  WAR 

Our  literature  is  almost  as  rich  as  our  language. 
Modern  German  literature  begins  in  the  eighteenth 
century.  Modern  English  literature  began  with 
Chaucer,  in  the  fourteenth  century,  and  has  been  full 
of  great  names  and  great  books  ever  since.  Nothing 
has  been  done  in  German  literature  for  which  we  have 
not  a  counterpart,  done  as  well  or  better — except  the 
work  of  Heine,  and  Heine  was  a  Jew.  His  opinion  of 
the  Prussians  was  that  they  are  a  compost  of  beer,  de- 
ceit, and  sand.  French  literature  and  English  litera- 
ture can  be  compared,  throughout  their  long  course, 
sometimes  to  the  great  advantage  of  the  French.  Ger- 
man literature  cannot  seriously  be  compared  with 
either. 

It  may  be  objected  that  literature  and  art  are  orna- 
mental affairs,  which  count  for  little  in  the  deadly 
strife  of  nations.  But  that  is  not  so.  Our  language 
cannot  go  anywhere  without  taking  our  ideas  and  our 
creed  with  it,  not  to  mention  our  institutions  and  our 
games.  If  the  Germans  could  understand  what  Chau- 
cer means  when  he  says  of  his  Knight  that 

he  loved  chivalry, 
Truth  and  honour,  freedom  and  courtesy, 

then  indeed  we  might  be  near  to  an  understanding.  I 
asked  a  good  German  scholar  the  other  day  what  is  the 
German  word  for  'fair  play'.  He  replied,  as  they  do 
in  Parliament,  that  he  must  ask  for  notice  of  that  ques- 
tion. I  fear  there  is  no  German  word  for  'fair  play'. 
The  little  countries,  the  pawns  and  victims  of  Ger- 
man policy,  understand  our  ideas  better.  The  peoples 
who  have  suffered  from  tyranny  and  oppression  look 
to  England  for  help,  and  it  is  a  generous  weakness  in 


SOME  GAINS  OF  THE  WAR  23 

us  that  we  sometimes  deceive  them  by  our  sympathy, 
for  our  power  is  limited,  and  we  cannot  help  them  all. 
But  it  will  not  count  against  us  at  the  final  reckoning 
that  in  most  places  where  humanity  has  suffered  cruelty 
and  indignity  the  name  of  England  has  been  invoked : 
not  always  in  vain. 

And  now,  for  I  have  kept  to  the  last  what  I  believe 
to  be  the  greatest  gain  of  all,  the  entry  of  America  into 
the  War  assures  the  triumph  of  our  common  language. 
America  is  peopled  by  many  races ;  only  a  minority  of 
the  inhabitants — an  influential  and  governing  minor- 
ity— are  of  the  English  stock.  But  here,  again,  the  lan- 
guage carries  it;  and  the  ideas  that  inspire  America 
are  ideas  which  had  their  origin  in  the  long  English 
struggle  for  freedom.  Our  sufferings  in  this  War  are 
great,  but  they  are  not  so  great  that  we  cannot  recog- 
nize virtue  in  a  new  recruit  to  the  cause.  No  nation,  in 
the  whole  course  of  human  history,  has  ever  made  a 
more  splendid  decision,  or  performed  a  more  magnani- 
mous act,  than  America,  when  she  decided  to  enter 
this  War.  She  had  nothing  to  gain,  for,  to  say  the  bare 
truth,  she  had  little  to  lose.  If  Germany  were  to  domi- 
nate the  world,  America,  no  doubt,  would  be  ruined; 
but  in  all  human  likelihood,  Germany's  impious  at- 
tempt would  have  spent  itself  and  been  broken  long  be- 
fore it  reached  the  coasts  of  America.  America  might 
have  stood  out  of  the  War  in  the  assurance  that  her 
own  interests  were  safe,  and  that,  when  the  tempest 
had  passed,  the  centre  of  civilization  would  be  trans- 
ferred from  a  broken  and  exhausted  Europe  to  a  peace- 
ful and  prosperous  America.  Some  few  Americana 
talked  in  this  strain,  and  favoured  a  decision  in  this 
sense.    But  it  was  not  for  nothing  that  America  was 


24  SOME  GAINS  OF  THE  WAR 

founded  upon  religion.  When  she  saw  humanity  in 
an^ish,  she  did  not  pass  by  on  the  other  side.  Her  en- 
try into  the  War  has  put  an  end,  I  hope  for  ever,  to  the 
family  quarrel,  not  very  profound  or  significant,  which 
for  a  century  and  a  half  has  been  a  jarring  note  in  the 
relations  of  mother  and  daughter.  And  it  has  put  an 
end  to  another  danger.  It  seemed  at  one  time  not  un- 
likely that  the  English  language  as  it  is  spoken  over- 
seas would  set  up  a  life  of  its  own,  and  become  sepa- 
rated from  the  language  of  the  old  country.  A  develop- 
ment of  this  kind  would  be  natural  enough.  The  Boers 
of  South  Africa  speak  Dutch,  but  not  the  Dutch  spoken 
in  Holland.  The  French  Canadians  speak  French,  but 
not  the  French  of  Moliere.  Half  a  century  ago,  when 
America  was  exploring  and  settling  her  own  country, 
in  wild  and  lone  places,  her  pioneers  enriched  the  Eng- 
lish speech  with  all  kinds  of  new  and  vivid  phrases. 
The  tendency  was  then  for  America  to  go  her  own 
way,  and  to  cultivate  what  is  new  in  language  at  the 
expense  of  what  is  old.  She  prided  herself  even  on 
having  a  spelling  of  her  own,  and  seemed  almost  will- 
ing to  break  loose  from  tradition  and  to  coin  a  new 
American  English. 

This  has  not  happened ;  and  now,  I  think,  it  will  not 
happen.  For  one  thing,  the  American  colonists  left  us 
when  already  we  had  a  great  literature.  Chaucer, 
Shakespeare,  and  Spenser  belong  to  America  no  less 
than  to  us,  and  America  has  never  forgotten  them. 
The  education  which  has  been  fostered  in  American 
schools  and  colleges  keeps  the  whole  nation  in  touch 
with  the  past.  Some  of  their  best  authors  write  in  a 
style  that  Milton  and  Burke  would  understand  and 
approve.     There  is  no  more  beautiful  English  prose 


SOME  GAINS  OF  THE  WAR  25 

than  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  ^s.  The  best  speeches  of 
Abraham  Lincoln,  and,  we  may  truly  add,  of  President 
Wilson,  are  merely  classic  English.  During  my  own 
lifetime  I  am  sure  I  have  seen  the  speech  usages  of  the 
two  peoples  draw  closer  together.  For  one  thing,  we 
on  this  side  now  borrow,  and  borrow  very  freely,  the 
more  picturesque  colloquialisms  of  America.  On  in- 
formal occasions  I  sometimes  brighten  my  own  speech 
with  phrases  which  I  think  I  owe  to  one  of  the  best  of 
living  American  authors,  Mr.  George  Ade,  of  Chicago, 
the  author  of  Fables  in  Slang.  The  press,  the  tele- 
graph, the  telephone,  and  the  growing  habit  of  travel 
bind  us  closer  together  every  year;  and  the  English 
that  we  speak,  however  rich  and  various  it  may  be,  is 
going  to  remain  one  and  the  same  English,  our  common 
inheritance. 

One  question,  the  most  important  and  difficult  of  all, 
remains  to  be  asked.  Will  this  War,  in  its  course  and 
in  its  effects,  tend  to  prevent  or  discourage  later  wars  ? 
If  the  gains  that  it  brings  prove  to  be  merely  partial 
and  national  gains,  if  it  exalts  one  nation  by  unjustly 
depressing  another,  and  conquers  cruelty  by  equal 
cruelty,  then  nothing  can  be  more  certain  than  that  the 
peace  of  the  world  is  farther  off  than  ever.  When  she 
was  near  her  death,  Edith  Cavell,  patriot  and  martyr, 
said  that  patriotism  is  not  enough.  Every  one  who 
thinks  on  international  affairs  knows  this;  almost 
every  one  forgets  it  in  time  of  war.  What  can  be  done 
to  prevent  nations  from  appealing  to  the  wild  justice 
of  revenge  ? 

A  League  of  Nations  may  do  good,  but  I  am  sur- 
prised that  any  one  who  has  imagination  and  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  facts  should  entertain  high  hopes  of  it  as  a 


26  SOME  GAINS  OF  THE  WAR 

full  solution.  There  is  a  Lea^e  of  Nations  to-day 
which  has  given  a  verdict  against  the  Central  Powers, 
and  that  verdict  is  being  enforced  by  the  most  terrible 
War  in  all  human  history.  If  the  verdict  had  been 
given  before  the  War  began,  it  may  be  said,  then  Ger- 
many might  have  accepted  it,  and  refrained.  So  she 
might,  but  what  then?  She  would  have  felt  herself 
wronged;  she  would  have  deferred  the  War,  and,  in 
ways  that  she  knows  so  well,  would  have  set  about  mak- 
ing a  party  for  herself  among  the  nations  of  the 
League.  Who  can  be  confident  that  she  would  have 
failed  either  to  divide  her  judges,  or  to  accumulate 
such  elements  of  strength  that  she  might  dare  to  defy 
them  ?  A  League  of  Nations  would  work  well  only  if  its 
verdicts  were  loyally  accepted  by  all  the  nations  com- 
posing it.  To  make  majority-rule  possible  you  must 
have  a  community  made  up  of  members  who  are  rea- 
sonably well  informed  upon  one  another's  affairs,  and 
who  are  bound  together  by  a  tie  of  loyalty  stronger  and 
more  enduring  than  their  causes  of  difference.  It  would 
be  a  happy  thing  if  the  nations  of  the  world  made  such 
a  community;  and  the  sufferings  of  this  War  have 
brought  them  nearer  to  desiring  it.  But  those  who  be- 
lieve that  such  a  community  can  be  formed  to-day  or 
to-morrow  are  too  sanguine.  It  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  the  very  principle  of  the  League,  if  its  judg- 
ments are  to  take  effect,  involves  a  world-war  in  cases 
where  a  strong  minority  resists  those  judgements. 
Every  war  would  become  a  world-war.  Perhaps  this 
very  fact  would  prevent  wars,  but  it  cannot  be  said 
that  experience  favours  such  a  conclusion. 

There  is  no  escape  for  us  by  way  of  the  Gospels.  The 
Gospel  precept  to  turn  the  other  cheek  to  the  aggressor 


SOME  GAINS  OP  THE  WAR  27 

was  not  addressed  to  a  meeting  of  trustees.  Chris- 
tianity has  never  shirked  war,  or  even  much  disliked  it. 
Where  the  whole  soul  is  set  on  things  unseen,  wounds 
and  death  become  of  less  account.  And  if  the  Chris- 
tians have  not  helped  us  to  avoid  war,  how  should  the 
pacifists  be  of  use?  Those  of  them  whom  I  happen  to 
know,  or  to  have  met,  have  shown  themselves,  in  the 
relations  of  civil  life,  to  be  irritable,  self-willed,  com- 
bative creatures,  where  the  average  soldier  is  calm,  un- 
selfish, and  placable.  There  is  something  incongruous 
and  absurd  in  the  pacifist  of  British  descent.  He  has 
fighting  in  his  blood,  and  when  his  creed,  or  his  nervous 
sensibility  to  physical  horrors,  denies  him  the  use  of 
fighting,  his  blood  turns  sour.  He  can  argue,  and  ob- 
ject, and  criticize,  but  he  cannot  lead.  All  that  he  can 
offer  us  in  effect  is  eternal  quarrels  in  place  of  occa- 
sional fights. 

No  one  can  do  anything  to  prevent  war  who  does 
not  recognize  its  splendour,  for  it  is  by  its  splendour 
that  it  keeps  its  hold  on  humanity,  and  persists.  The 
wickedest  and  most  selfish  war  in  the  world  is  not 
fought  by  wicked  and  selfish  soldiers.  The  spirit  of 
man  is  immense,  and  for  an  old  memory,  a  pledged 
word,  a  sense  of  fellowship,  offers  this  frail  and  compli- 
cated tissue  of  flesh  and  blood,  which  a  pin  or  a  grain  of 
sand  will  disorder,  to  be  the  victim  of  all  the  atrocities 
that  the  wit  of  man  can  compound  out  of  fire  and  steel 
and  poison.  If  that  spirit  is  to  be  changed,  or  directed 
into  new  courses,  it  must  be  by  one  who  understands  it, 
and  approaches  it  reverently,  with  bared  head. 

The  best  hope  seems  to  me  to  lie  in  paying  chief  at- 
tention to  the  improvement  of  war  rather  than  to  its 
abolition;  to  the  decencies  of  the  craft;  to  the  style 


28  SOME  GAINS  OF  THE  WAR 

rather  than  the  matter.  Style  is  often  more  important 
than  matter,  and  this  War  would  not  have  been  so 
fierce  or  so  prolonged  if  it  had  not  become  largely  a 
war  on  a  point  of  style,  a  war,  that  is  to  say,  to  deter- 
mine the  question  how  war  should  be  waged.  If  the 
Germans  had  behaved  humanely  and  considerately  to 
the  civil  population  of  Belgium,  if  they  had  kept  their 
solemn  promise  not  to  use  poison-gas,  if  they  had  re- 
frained from  murder  at  sea,  if  their  valour  had  been 
accompanied  by  chivalry,  the  War  might  now  have  been 
ended,  perhaps  not  in  their  disfavour,  for  it  would  not 
have  been  felt,  as  it  now  is  felt,  that  they  must  be  de- 
feated at  no  matter  how  great  a  cost,  or  civilization  will 
perish. 

Even  as  things  are,  there  have  been  some  gains  in 
the  manner  of  conducting  war,  which,  when  future 
generations  look  back  on  them,  will  be  seen  to  be  con- 
siderable. It  is  true  that  modern  science  has  devised 
new  and  appalling  weapons.  The  invention  of  a  new 
weapon  in  war  always  arouses  protest,  but  it  does  not 
usually,  in  the  long  run,  make  war  more  inhuman. 
There  was  a  great  outcry  in  Europe  when  the  broad- 
sword was  superseded  by  the  rapier,  and  a  tall  man  of 
his  hands  could  be  spitted  like  a  cat  or  a  rabbit  by  any 
dexterous  little  fellow  with  a  trained  wrist.  There  was 
a  wave  of  indignation,  which  was  a  hundred  years  in 
passing,  when  musketry  first  came  into  use,  and  a  man- 
at-arms  of  great  prowess  could  be  killed  from  behind  a 
wall  by  one  who  would  not  have  dared  to  meet  him  in 
open  combat.  But  these  changes  did  not,  in  effect,  make 
war  cruder  or  more  deadly.  They  gave  more  play  to 
intelligence,  and  abolished  the  tyranny  of  the  bully, 
who  took  the  wall  of  every  man  he  met,  and  made  him- 


SOME  GAINS  OF  THE  WAR  29 

self  a  public  nuisance.  The  introduction  of  poison-gas, 
which  is  a  small  thing  compared  with  the  invention  of 
fire-arms,  has  given  the  chemist  a  place  in  the  ranks  of 
fighting-men.  And  if  science  has  lent  its  aid  to  the 
destruction  of  life,  it  has  spent  greater  zeal  and  more 
prolonged  effort  on  the  saving  of  life.  No  previous 
war  will  compare  with  this  in  care  for  the  wounded 
and  maimed.  In  all  countries,  and  on  all  fronts,  an 
army  of  skilled  workers  devote  themselves  to  this  single 
end.  I  believe  that  this  quickening  of  the  human  con- 
science, for  that  is  what  it  is,  will  prove  to  be  the  great- 
est gain  of  the  War,  and  the  greatest  advance  made  in 
restraint  of  war.  If  the  nations  come  to  recognize  that 
their  first  duty,  and  their  first  responsibility,  is  to  those 
who  give  so  much  in  their  service,  that  recognition  will 
of  itself  do  more  than  can  be  done  by  any  conclave 
of  statesmen  to  discourage  war.  It  was  the  monk 
Telemachus,  according  to  the  old  story,  who  stopped 
the  gladiatorial  games  at  Rome,  and  was  stoned  by  the 
people.  If  war,  in  process  of  time,  shall  be  abolished, 
or,  failing  that,  shall  be  governed  by  the  codes  of 
humanity  and  chivalry,  like  a  decent  tournament ;  then 
the  one  sacrificial  figure  which  will  everywhere  be 
honoured  for  the  change  will  be  the  figure  not  of  a 
priest  or  a  politician,  but  of  a  hospital  nurse. 


J   •♦,*•■    * 
#   .  «   •  ^  ' 


'  •     •  • 
1  •  •  •  •  • 


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